Joe’s Junkyard
New photo exhibit at Catherine Smith Gallery explores the artist’s troubled family

By Jeff Eason

Photographer Lisa Kereszi has become one of the leading voices in her craft and her work often captures the spirit of subject to an unparalleled level. Her latest exhibition, “Joe’s Junkyard,” now on display at the Catherine Smith Gallery in Boone, is perhaps her most personal effort yet as it shows in loving detail the family business where she and her siblings grew up.

Kereszi began taking pictures of her father’s junkyard when she was still a teenager and continued to do so after she became a professional photographer. Her exhibit, and accompanying book, tell an epic tale of “money, near bankruptcy, family feuds, violence, drugs, death and suicide.”

The Mountain Times caught up with Lisa Kereszi last week for a discussion on family, photographs and film. Here is a portion of that interview:

The Mountain Times: Where are you originally from?

Lisa Kereszi: Outside of Philadelphia. My father had a junkyard just off I-95 between Philadelphia and Wilmington, Delaware. It’s in a town that once had a heyday. Chester, Pennsylvania used to have a Macy’s back in the fifties, but it’s been all downhill from there. Closer to where the junkyard is are a lot of oil refineries, which I definitely think hurt the property values because who wants to live near that.
MT: Were you always interested in photography?

LK: I was interested in photography growing up but I never thought of it as a career option. I thought I would be a writer, that’s what I always wanted to be. I think there’s a lot of intersection between photography and writing, so it worked out. Yeah, I was going to be a writer or a marine biologist.

In high school we had an art major program but I was a terrible draftsman. I couldn’t draw or paint very well. We didn’t have photography. I think had we had photography in high school, I would have started it earlier.

MT: So you first studied it in college?

LK: I didn’t get into photo classes my first year at Bard College in the Hudson Valley in New York. I started them my sophomore year. But I had been taking pictures even at the junkyard starting when I was about 16

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MT: Did you study film or digital photography or both?

LK: I studied with 35mm film at the beginning. Bard has a great photo program and I lucked into that. My senior year I did some medium format photography, which is what I do now. My junior year we had a 4” x 5” class, which is large format. Two of the pictures in this exhibit are large format and the rest of them are medium format, where the negatives are six-by-seven centimeters.

MT: What are some of your personal preferences and techniques?

LK: I generally use a hand-held camera outside and a tripod inside, for the most part. 98 percent of what I shoot utilizes natural light without a flash. Even some of the garage shots are lit only with the fluorescent lights that are in the garage.

MT: Does that require a lot of color balancing?

LK: I’m shooting color negatives, so there is a lot I can do in the darkroom. I wouldn’t call it major color changing, just balancing it back to normal.

MT: Do you do a lot of cropping in the darkroom?

LK: Never. I was taught that you crop when you take the picture. You’re cropping the world, essentially. So the frame I implement upon the world is my frame. You know, I’ll crop the picture if it is crooked—and I do that a lot—I have a lot of trouble taking a straight picture. But I never change the composition.

MT: Do you ever use digital photography?

LK: I do for snapshots and for my commercial work, because it’s just so much easier and cheaper, especially in low light situations. But not for my artwork. And I don’t see that changing.

MT: Are you having any trouble getting your favorite film these days?

LK: I used to use Fuji NPL and that’s gone. I just heard three days ago that another film that I’ve been using a little bit, Fuji 800, has been discontinued. I don’t know if that’s 100 percent true, but it’s something that someone told me. Fuji 400 is what I usually use but it is nice to have some 800 in your bag. But I use a tripod a lot, so 400 is just fine.

I think I’m going to be okay for a while. I think it’s the large format stuff that’s going to get more and more expensive. I think there will always be people shooting on film. Maybe “always” is not the right word. I like to say people still make silk screens, people still make lithographs, people paint, so why wouldn’t film photography last?

MT: Because you have to rely on companies to make the film?

LK: Well, some people could make their own film. That’s what they used to do. Sally Mann does it. She’s a Virginia photographer who coats her own plates, and they’re all sloppy and messy, but that’s how she likes it. I don’t see myself doing that. But I think there are enough people shooting film that there’s a market for it still.
MT: What kind of commercial photography do you do?

LK: Mostly magazine work, either portraits or theatrical events. The stuff I like the most is going to a place and doing a story about that place or some big subject. Lately I’ve been working for The New Yorker, Newseek and Bon Appetit.

I do a little bit of advertising. It’s hard to get and my work is not happy go lucky. So I’m only hired for things that are right for me. And I accept that because I’m not going to change who I am.

MT: And you also teach photography?

LK: Yes, I teach at the Yale School of Art in New Haven. I teach intro to photography, intermediate photography and advanced photography. I teach black and white and color, film and digital.

MT: Do most of your photographs tell a story the way “Joe’s Junkyard” does?

LK: Most of my work is more open to interpretation, but this is a subject that is pretty well contained. It has a beginning, middle and pretty much an end. The business was sold to my cousins in 2003. I think this show tells a story, but the real story is told in the book. It has a lot more pictures and quotes and supporting material such as historical pictures.

MT: What does the junkyard mean to you and your family?

LK: It was owned by my grandfather who died in the 90s. He left it to my grandmother—who was not in good health at the time—and she and my dad ran it. And my dad pretty much ran it into the ground. What’s funny now is that even though everything changed, everything is still the same. My dad goes to swap meets. So he buys and sells crap and car parts. He calls me when he wants to put his stuff up on Craig’s List. So I’m helping try to sell stuff but I’m trying to not get too involved. I’m trying not to say the word “e-Bay” because I don’t want to get into it.

I know that sounds terrible but they’re subsisting on welfare and my grandmother is retired so she gets Social Security. They get a mortgage payment from my cousin who bought the junkyard. So for 15 years they their mortgage paid for. And they’re just subsisting. They’re breaking even. Whereas when they owned the business they weren’t breaking even. So I guess they’re better off now.